Harry Browne is dead
Harry Browne, an uncompromising advocate for individual liberty and a two-time Libertarian Party candidate for president, died yesterday from Lou Gherig’s disease.
The trouble with being uncompromising is that it doesn’t win elections. By putting Browne at the top of the ticket, the LP was saying that achieving ideological nirvana was more important than winning at the ballot box and making any real change.
Consider this post by Brian Doherty on “Hit and Run:”
Browne was a controversial figure in the LP, at first because he had for years been one of the loudest anti-political voices in the movement before changing his mind and seeking the presidential nomination, and winning it, in 1996. He had been so loud and firm an anti-political voice, in fact, that the term “Browneing Out” was used in the 1970s in libertarian circles to mean retreating from any commitment to further libertarian goals through political action, or any sort of action.
Hat tip: Peoria Pundit.
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